My road map for CES 2007

Summary:I'll be at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. In between waiting for cabs, I'll be talking with the companies who are planning to release an avalanche of gadgets and gizmos - oh, and Windows Vista will make its public debut here as well. I've narrowed down my meeting list by focusing on five technologies that are going to drive the consumer electronics market in 2007.

Next week I'll be at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Mostly, I'll be standing in line for a cab or the Monorail, or walking from one booth to another (and given that the exhibit halls cover several square miles, I expect to wear out a whole bunch of shoe leather). Seriously. CES is so spread out that I expect to lose five pounds and wear out my tradeshow shoes over the course of the week.

But for brief intervals, in between all that waiting and walking, I expect to meet with a lot of interesting people to learn what we can expect from the consumer electronics industry in 2007 and beyond. I'll be reporting on the details of those meetings here.

It was easy to reject some requests for meetings/briefings/appointments/booth visits. I don't cover receivers, speakers, and other home audio gear these days, and gadgets like mobile phones and iPod accessories are also outside of my beat. I'm not a gamer, so that cuts out a huge slice of the market as well. But other choices are lots tougher. If I had unlimited time, I could meet with 200 companies and learn things that would be interesting and useful and worth passing along to you. So how did I decide who to meet with and who to turn down? My strategy for CES is based around five technologies and trends I think are going to be important this year:

Windows Vista. This one's at the top of my list for obvious reasons. CES represents Microsoft's public unveiling of Windows Vista. I don't expect to learn much that I don't already know about the operating system itself. Instead, I'll be meeting with and talking to Microsoft partners - mostly PC makers like Dell and Toshiba, but also some manufacturers of peripheral devices and software - and trying to gauge their level of enthusiasm about Vista. I'll also be watching the reaction of everyday show attendees who are seeing Vista for the first time. I'm curious whether any of them will really be spontaneously saying "Wow."

High Definition. Americans are spending big bucks on digital TVs, and they want content for it. Last year at CES, the battle between the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD was still mostly in the trash-talking phase. This year, the first generation of hardware and HD-ready titles is released. I'm wondering whether either format will succeed, or whether consumers will do an end-around and get their HD from other places.

Digital media in the living room. Windows Vista Media Center is as slick and polished a PC program as Microsoft has ever created, but the idea of a PC in the living room is still alien to all but the most hard core techies and gadget junkies. So what are the alternatives? I'll be talking to TiVo, to cable and satellite companies, and to people who are designing gadgets designed to move music, TV, and pictures from place to place without requiring complex PC hardware.

Home automation. This is my choice for the sleeper technology of the show. Home automation systems have been common in very expensive homes for years. Their cost is coming down, and the widespread availability of reasonably reliable wireless networks makes it possible to retrofit a home so that you can manage lighting, security systems, and media using a variety of control points, including touchpads and remote controls. I'll also be interested to see whether and how Microsoft's rumored Windows Home Server fits into this scenario.

DRM and copy protection. Unfortunately, some of the most interesting new technologies at CES are designed to make it more difficult for some people to access the stuff they're selling in the booth next door. I expect to talk about DRM and copy protection with just about everyone I speak to, and I expect some of those conversations to be, shall we say, frank and energetic. I'll pass along whatever I learn.

Think I missed anything? I'm not leaving for another 48 hours, so click the Talkback button and give me your thoughts on what you'd like me to bring back from CES.

Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications. He has served as editor of the U.S. edition of PC Computing and managing editor of PC World; both publications had monthly paid circulation in excess of 1 million during his tenure. He is the a...
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Ed Bott is a freelance technical journalist and book author. All work that Ed does is on a contractual basis.Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books have been distributed under several imprints: Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education); Microsoft Press (with production and distribution by O'Reilly), and Fair Trade Digital Exchange, where he was briefly a partner. On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate. Ed sometimes receive fees and/or travel expenses for live speeches and webinars from companies and organizations. Acceptance of these fees does not constitute an endorsement of the company's products. Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMware. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than seven years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth. Ed does not accept gifts from companies he covers. All hardware products he writes about are purchased with his own funds or are review units covered under formal loan agreements and are returned after the review is complete.